Summer
by Kuroeia
Summary: -Shura x Yukio- All she wanted was a little honesty. Turns out the knife cuts both ways. Or: Shura gets Yukio drunk and there are Consequences.


**A/N:** Shameless pseudo-pedo pseudo-PWP. I could make excuses but I'm too lazy. Deal with it.

**x.x.x**

_**Summer**_

**x.x.x**

It was the last food stand open in thirty blocks. All it was serving was cold skewered fish and alcohol, but that was fine.

"I'm underage," he reminded her.

Even this late in the evening, with the last of the sunlight already an afterimage at the very edge of the horizon, it was still oppressively hot and humid. It gave the air a hypnagogic heaviness that made it hard to breathe.

"Oh, come on," said Shura, and offered the bottle again. The apathetic bartender hitched up his sliding pants and began lazily scrubbing the grill, ignoring all the laws she was trying to break right in front of him. "You're like, seventeen going on forty, anyway. No one's gonna care."

Yukio pinched the furrowed skin between his eyebrows and took a deep breath to fight off the headache he could sense on the horizon. "No. And why are we here, anyway?"

She shrugged. The motion nearly made her breasts fall out of her top. He was fairly sure her clothes were charmed, somehow, since she threatened to fall out of them every five minutes and yet never did. "Rin's been keepin' us both pretty busy, yeah? What with all the runnin' around, we ain't had time to catch up in a while."

"Catch up on _what?_"

"Stuff! I dunno. What's happenin' in yer life? I hear stuff, but just the bare bones. I wanna know how yer holdin' up, what with everythin' goin' pear-shaped. They nearly made ya kill yer own brother. That's gotta sting a bit, yeah? So I thought I'd give ya a chance to spill yer guts."

"Why?" he asked faintly, taken aback. The stand was badly lit to begin with, and the light over her head was five minutes from dead, so he couldn't quite see her face properly. When she turned to look at him, though, he caught the flash of her earnest eyes and felt his stomach shift uneasily.

"Well…" she said, then hesitated.

The uneasiness intensified. In all the time he had known her, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen her hesitate. "Shura-san," he said. "Please explain yourself."

She sighed, and leaned back precariously on her high stool to cross her bared legs. She was wearing something resembling a yukata tonight, though it would probably have properly fit her last when she was seven years old or so. Even so, there was no real sense of provocation to her tonight. She wasn't looking to get a rise out of anyone. There was something else in her eyes right now, but he couldn't figure it out with just the one crappy dying light.

"Well, the way I see it," she said, "I'm the closest thing to a friend ya got, kid. Yer brother don't count, you're family. The kids in class ain't yer friends 'cause you're their teacher. It's a different thing. An' yer always so busy studyin' ya never seem to have time to cut loose and make some buddies the old-fashioned ways. Ya never pulled any pranks with anyone, or told anyone any secrets, or tried to learn anyone else's. Yer like a ghost, four-eyes. Ya don't touch no one, and don't let no one touch ya either. At least when yer with me, ya get angry sometimes, and tell the truth a little."

He stared at her, mouth agape. "Shura."

She coughed uncomfortably and waved her hand at the bartender. He tossed her another greenish bottle of clear, sharp-smelling liqueur. It smelled faintly like wood polish from where Yukio sat. She popped the top with one practiced hand and downed half of it in one go. "You sure you don't want any o' this? It's rat bilge, but it does the trick."

He automatically opened his mouth to refuse, then grit his teeth and held out a hand. "You are a corrosive influence on me," he informed her.

She grinned ferally and grabbed a glass from the grubby counter. The bartender continued to ignore her. Maybe she came here often, and he was just used to her. The bilge polish made an oddly merry sound as it tinkled into the glass, and when she slid it over to him it sparkled a little in the dim light.

The smell was much worse up close, but surprisingly tolerable. He wrinkled his nose at it, then shrugged and tossed it back. It burned hard on the way down, making his eyes water, but he didn't let himself make a sound. Not with her watching.

Why had he done that? It made no sense, but something about the way she'd painted his school life made him defensive and restless. He'd just been driven, that was all. He had something desperately important to do, and couldn't let anything distract him from becoming capable of doing it. And yet…

"So?" she asked, grinning broadly.

"This," he said, "is very bad."

"I warned ya." She slid off the stool and dragged it over until it stood mere inches from his, then resituated herself and poured him another glass. "Here, don't stop now. Ya can't go drinking with me and just dip yer toes."

"I don't want any more," he said, but he knew this was a losing battle. The blurry heat was spreading from his belly through his veins. He could feel the heat radiating off her despite her scanty attire, and hear the relaxed tide of her breath.

Shura poured the rest of the bottle directly down her throat and grabbed another one from the rack without waiting for the bartender. "Don't care," she said. "I'm yer elder and I say drink up, so do it. Scaredy-cat."

"I told you not to call me that," he reminded her, but did as she commanded. The second shot burned even worse than the first, if possible. "Urgh."

"I've always wondered if ya could hold yer liquor," she said with a smirk. "Be a good boy and satisfy my curiosity, okay?"

When she poured the next glass, the sound of it seemed much louder, proportionally, than it should have been. The tumbling crystalline rush of it filled his ears, blocking out the screeching grasshoppers for a few seconds. This one was fuller than the first two. He stared at it for a moment, then downed it.

This time it burned less. It felt more like swallowing desert sunlight, if sunlight tasted like week-old rotting tea leaves. The heat washed through him without pain. The sharp edges of the night began to lose their coherency. The bar began to feel more like something in a dream than reality. He found himself hypnotized by the fitful flickering of the dying light-bulb beyond Shura's head.

"How're ya feelin'?" she murmured in his ear, inexplicably close. "Nice, innit?"

It was and wasn't. There was something undeniably pleasurable about the way his muscles were unravelling themselves for the first time in years, and the way it was suddenly impossible to think about the future, but it also made him nervous. If they were attacked, would he be able to aim? Would he be able to _stand?_ He was making himself completely helpless, and it frightened him.

"I don't like this," he replied, which was only half-true, but that half was the more important one to him. "How can you fight like this?"

"It's easy," she said. "Even easier than fightin' sober, actually, at least fer me. It's easier to notice details, and my body moves on its own instead of me havin' ta think about it. Everything looks like it's happening a little slower than it should. I mean, I'm still alive, ain't I? So somethin' must be workin' right for me."

"I don't think it's going to work that way for me," he said honestly. Whatever he was feeling, it was different from what she described. He felt like he was losing contact with his own body a little, like his soul was clearer but his limbs were heavy as anchors.

She poured him another, and this time he only hesitated for half a moment before drinking it.

He was going to regret this, he knew, but somehow he knew that this was something he couldn't run from. It was a test, a trial he had to face, a rite of passage into something. He needed to do this, and needed to suffer the consequences. It was… important.

"S'alright, y'know," she said. "If ya let go a little, I mean. I won't tell no one. An' I think ya need it, ta be honest. I won't let ya do nothin' stupid. I got yer back."

"Shura," he murmured. "You said I tell the truth with you, sometimes."

She squinted. "Weell… sorta. Ya tell bits of it, but never things big enough to make a difference. Like when ya said ya hated me, that I pissed ya off right from the start. That was true, but not the whole thing. Am I right?"

Yukio took the time to pour himself the next glass and finish it before answering. "Of course you are. You act stupid, but you've got sharper eyes than anyone I know. You… you see through people. I saw you, the way you broke Rin wide open and cleaned out his insides. You scare me."

She smiled, her teeth flashing through the gloom perhaps a foot off to his right. "That's true, too," she said, "but again, not the whole thing."

The bartender heaved a sigh and put the glass he'd been monotonously wiping over and over again for some five minutes down with a clink. "Look, guys, I should've been closed an hour ago. Any chance you could pay your bill and take it somewhere else?"

Shura pouted, but pulled out her wallet. Yukio followed suit, but she scowled at him. "Nuh-uh. This one's on me, four-eyes."

"I can—"

"I said no," she interrupted. "Here ya go, Teddy. Sorry, I'm kinda bad at keepin' track o' time. Oh, and gimme a few more for the road, will ya?"

Yukio watched as she handed over a fairly prodigious wad of cash and bid the sour-faced bartender farewell. He thought about standing up, but discovered to his alarm that he wasn't sure he could anymore. He'd had a good bottle and a half of the rat bilge, and it was fairly strong stuff. His center of balance was very unreliable and hard to locate.

"C'mon, four-eyes," said Shura once she'd stashed her wallet down the front of her already-precarious yukata, "let's get going."

"Where?" he asked vaguely.

"My place, duh," she said. "I live pretty close ta here. That's why I like this place. S'easy to get home even if I'm totally tanked."

He rolled his eyes, then immediately regretted it as the entire world span around his head. "Figures," he managed, as she adjusted her grip on his waist and his arm around her shoulders.

"Ya really don't think much o' me, do ya?" she asked as they shambled along down the winding semi-paved park path, back toward the glow of the city beyond the rampart of trees.

"Yes and no," he said. "No, because you're incredibly talented but never try to push yourself. Yes, because even without trying you're still brilliant. It drives me crazy that you're still better than me even though I've worked so hard all this time. You don't deserve to be great, and yet you are. I need to be great, but I can't ever seem to get there no matter how much I sacrifice. Can you understand that?"

Shura sighed. "Course I can, idiot," she said. "But fer what it's worth, I ain't actually great. Yeah, I'm talented, and I'm real comfortable on the battlefield, but when push comes to shove I'm nothin'. I don't got the drive, y'see. I fight because it's fun, and because I wanna protect you an' yer brother, but that little thing inside some people that makes 'em willin' to sweat an' bleed an' cry ta get stronger and reach their goals… I ain't got it. An' that's why yer already better than me, even if ya don't know it yet."

"I'm not—"

"Yeah, y'are," she interrupted. "Shut up and concentrate on walkin', ya idiot."

He realized he was leaning quite heavily on her, and shamefacedly pulled himself up. In the dark, under the trees, the shadows seemed to shift and smear. Focusing only made it worse, as did closing his eyes entirely. Yukio stumbled and cursed softly.

"Careful," she said quietly. "I'm pretty hammered, too, so if ya go down you're gonna take me with ya."

"Sorry," he whispered. "Sorry."

Though objectively he was sure the walk to her apartment took less than ten minutes, it felt like time was sliding around him and getting lost in its own currents, so that if the sun had come up just then he would not have been surprised.

She lived on the third floor. The stairs were a hazard, but they miraculously made it up without major incident. Once inside, she flipped on the lights. They were golden ambient lamps, not harsh white overheads, so they didn't break the dreamlike atmosphere.

Her apartment was not large, but she had crammed all the furniture and belongings of one twice its size into it. Immediately to the right upon entering was a very small enclosed kitchen, with cabinets affixed to the ceiling blocking most of the view into the room beyond it. To the left was a washroom.

Past them was the living room, which appeared to make up most of the rest of the apartment. Along the right wall she had arranged a long burnt-orange sofa with two worn brown armchairs bookending it. The tiny spaces left at the corners had triangular shelves piled haphazardly with books and music discs and knick-knacks. Along the left wall stood a few more bookcases and a large television, unquestionably the sovereign ruler of the room. An indent in the left wall contained a door canted to the right, which must lead behind the television to her bedroom.

All told, it was no bigger than his classroom. His eyes scanned everything and took automatic note of details, whether pointless or pertinent, storing everything away in case of some unforeseeable future emergency.

"Stop that," she said, and lightly pinched his waist, making him flinch. "It's my place, not enemy territory. Ya don't need ta memorize it."

"Sorry," he said again.

She deposited him unceremoniously on the couch and rifled through the kitchen for a minute before coming back with a pair of mismatched glasses and one of the bottles she'd bought to take home.

"More?" he said faintly, distantly terrified.

She laughed for a moment. "Nah, only if you wanna. I ain't gonna make ya if yer really don't like it."

Yukio hesitated for a moment, then picked up the closer of the glasses from the low table and held it out. "I started this," he said steadily, "I'll see it through. I'm not the type to take shortcuts. You know that."

The light in the apartment was dim, too, but more even. He could see her eyes, now. Usually they were some strange shade of gold or Chinese-lantern orange, but right now they were red and dark as tea. He had often wondered if she was entirely human. Right now, he was quite certain she wasn't. Oh, she was probably _mostly_ human, but somewhere back in the dusty archives of her family history there must have been something… else. Something frightening and beautiful. Or maybe it was Gehenna that had done this to her, given her this transparent supernatural glow.

"I do indeed," she replied with a flippant grin, but her eyes were still dark and fixed on him as she handed him the glass back.

It hardly burned at all, now. Less like sunlight than campfire light, smoky and surreal.

He took a deep breath, and as he let it out settled into the couch and let his hands fall palms-up on the cushions. Shura was sitting very close again, and even though he was very warm now too he could still feel her.

It was strange how old he felt. He was seventeen, and she was twenty-eight, but he barely felt younger than her at all. She had a small advantage, having risked more and experienced more, but when it came to the other things that made an adult – awareness of the world, recognition of responsibility, healthy respect for the terror of the future – he was neck and neck with her, maybe even a little ahead.

If he was still a child, then so was she, and if she wasn't, he wasn't either.

"Can I ask you something?"

She leaned back too, and let the incline created by his weight tip her toward him until their shoulders touched. "Sure, four-eyes."

"Why did you do this?"

"Huh?"

He stared at the hypnotic patterns of the alcohol swirling restlessly in his glass. "Why did you ask me out and get me drunk, Shura? What did you want to see me do, or hear me say?"

She shrugged. "I ain't that connivin', kid. I wasn't lookin' for anythin' specific. I was just curious what you'd be like. You can learn a lot about a person by watchin' them while they're drunk, y'know. Sometimes it's the only time their real selves can come out, an' they turn into totally different people. Sometimes it breaks the surface an' lets whatever's just under there spill out. Sometimes people don't change at all, and that's how ya know ya've got an honest one."

"Which am I?"

"Not sure yet. Ya ain't a different person, just kinda… more o' yaself, so I don't think you're a type one. When I poked ya earlier, some stuff came out I'm not sure you'da said sober, so maybe type two. Definitely not a type three, though, haha. You could probably count the number o' times ya been honest in yer whole life on yer lyin' little toes."

"I had no choice," he protested. "I had to protect my brother, and he couldn't know. I suppose I just got used to hiding, because the harder I hid, the less likely it got he'd find me before I was ready. And it worked. He had no idea until I told him straight to his face." Yukio grinned for a moment, helplessly, recalling Rin's bewilderment. "All that time he thought he'd been protecting me. It was nice to finally be able to tell him the truth. I didn't sleep at all the night before, though. Telling the truth feels good, but… it's so difficult, now. I think I broke myself a little."

Shura bumped his shoulder companionably. "Oh, yeah, you're definitely a type two, kiddo. Lookit all this stuff pourin' out. A little longer and ya woulda burst like a rotten melon." She slung an arm around him and absently rubbed her thumb against his upper arm. "Now I'm glad I didn't wait. What a mess that woulda been."

"Shura," he said suddenly.

Startled, she stopped and looked at him. "What?"

For a moment, he hesitated, and nearly abandoned ship, but managed to hold on despite his deep nervousness. "What am I to you, exactly?"

She stared at him, then suddenly snorted. "What a question, kid. Why do ya wanna know?"

"Just tell me," he persisted. "You said earlier you were the closest thing I have to a friend. You were right, but it cuts both ways. You come across as really extroverted, but you don't really have any friends either. But though I'm the closest thing, I don't know if I'm really entirely a friend. So I want to know. What am I?"

He felt her tremble slightly, then, and wondered if he'd gone too far. It was hard to make out boundaries through the haze of alcohol. Had he trespassed? Was she angry?

"Oh, kid," she said softly, "you don't want me to answer that. Trust me."

Suddenly determined, he shifted himself, dragging one knee up onto the couch to support him so he could face her directly. Her arm fell from his shoulders and landed on his calf. She left it there, the unnatural warmth of her hand soaking through the thin fabric of his trousers so that he could feel it. "Shura," he said, dimly trying to remember when he'd dropped the honorific, "please. From what I understand about drinking this heavily, I probably won't remember in the morning anyway, so please, just tell me the truth. It's important."

For a long, long handful of moments, she only met his eyes, unblinking, and he watched them darken nearly to black. All the light in the room seemed to be drawn to them and vanish into their depths. He felt a sudden tremor in his chest, and wondered at it. Then…

"Yukio," she said.

It was the first time she'd called him by name all night. "Oh," he whispered, because now he had an inkling of what she hadn't wanted to tell him. His name in her mouth sounded… different. Heavier than it should be. Warmer and deeper and somehow closer to the skin. He'd never heard that tone before – at least, not aimed at him – but he recognized it. Though he'd immersed himself in his studies, he hadn't been quite so oblivious to the rest of the world as to miss that particular contextual lesson.

"Yer an idiot," she informed him. "Tellin' the truth is usually better, yeah. And fer you, it's really important, because yer lies make the lock on the demon gate in yer heart a little weaker every time. But sometimes, there're times when tellin' the truth is a seriously bad idea. This is one of them. So… don't make me, kid. Please."

Whether it was the alcohol, or the strange golden lighting, or her eyes, or his own sudden lack of fear, he didn't know. The words came welling up his throat and spilled out without giving him time to swallow them back. "Say it again," he said.

She looked at him mutely, and he felt her hand on his calf tremble again.

"Shura," he said, and this time when he said her name he told the truth too. He watched it roll through her like an incoming tide, and waited until she had nearly found her feet again before continuing. "Say it again, Shura. Please."

She closed her eyes and let out a hitched breath. He could see past her eyelids, into her mind, to the place where she was grappling with her wiser self and hating herself for winning. It was unfair of him, he knew, but his own wiser self was languishing in the back rooms of his mind, insensate with opiate fatigue, and could not stop him. He put a hand over hers, dragging his fingertips across her wrist a little just to feel her.

She shuddered and jerked it away. "Stop," she said. "I'm an idiot, I never should've… dammit. Just… don't, okay? You'll hate me in the morning if I let ya go any further, y'know, so don't push."

The sunfire was waking in his veins, roaring through him and melting everything in its path. It was too late now, he knew. Even if he miraculously found a way to purge it from his veins, it had brought him too far to turn back. Even sober, he was past the point of no return.

"I won't," he said. "I'm drunk, Shura, but I'm still myself. You said it yourself. I'm type two, not type one. I'm only telling the truth."

"Well, don't," she said helplessly.

She was rubbing the back of her hand, where he'd touched her. He wondered if she even knew she was doing it.

"Hypocrite," he said under his breath, then: "You still haven't answered my question."

"I told ya not ta ask it!" Her breathing had shortened and become erratic. Her eyes were black as pitch, but still somehow clear, like dark water. "Goddammit, Yukio—"

There it was again, unmistakeable and bright as flame. "Tell me," he said, and this time it wasn't a polite request. He held her gaze and refused to let her run away.

She sucked in a shuddering breath, held it for a moment, and—

He could see it. Unblinking, he watched, and saw the exact moment when she broke and the floodgates opened. He wondered for a very brief moment if this was why she drank so much: if she trained herself to hold the fort against the worst assault she could conjure up, perhaps her secrets could stay safe. But she had picked the wrong fight this time. The fortress walls were crumbling, the moat drying up, and he could see right into the courtyard from the banks.

All she needed was one more push — he reached out and touched her hair, let it slide through his fingers, as if he had all the time in the world to waste just on looking at it — and there it was, the end of the war.

Shura slid her hands up his face, curling into his hair and around his ears, unhurried now that she had finally given in. "Don't regret this, Yukio," she said, and then she leaned in and pressed her lips slowly, slowly against his.

They were soft, and damp with poisonous fire-liquor, and he could feel the thrumming of her blood through the arteries of her throat.

"Shura," he whispered against her, and then let his own gates break open. He slid his hands around her waist – so tiny, she was so powerful that it was easy to forget how _small_ she was – and pulled her halfway onto his lap. She drew herself up and wrapped her kneeling legs around his, now entirely on top of him, her face hovering a few inches above his.

He looked up at her, at her black, black eyes, and smiled, _for_ her rather than at her. Then he brought one hand up to the back of her neck and pulled her down for a more serious exploration. She braced her hands against his chest, digging her fingertips in a little as he brushed her lips with his tongue.

Another fortress tower crumbled and fell. She gasped a little and opened her mouth to kiss him in earnest. He met her halfway without hesitation. He'd never done this before, and had not read any of the raunchy books and comics his classmates had to prepare themselves, but he was a very, very clever man. He could guess what he needed to do. The sensation of their tongues curling around each other was very strange, and shockingly intimate, but not unpleasant. He stroked her tongue with his, and sucked on it a little, and dragged her hips harder into his belly with his hands.

She broke away suddenly, panting, wild-eyed, and swallowed hard. "This is a really bad idea—"

Ignoring her, then, he carefully removed his glasses and laid them on the table. The world was blurry and indistinct without them, but he didn't need them for this. He could still see everything he wanted to.

"Yukio, we shouldn't—"

He cut her off, tipping her over backwards until she landed on her back with her head on the armrest and her knees still around his hips. He kneeled over her, and wondered if she was really going to try to put a serious stop to things. He knew he could stop, too, if it was what she wanted, but he sincerely hoped it wasn't. "Shura," he said quietly. "It's all right. I promise you, it's all right."

"Oh, dammit," she said, high and lost, "dammit, ya idiot, if you regret this I swear to Satan himself I will kick every square inch of your stupid, stupid ass."

"Duly noted," he replied with a smile, and curled a hand around the back of her neck to align her mouth to his.

Having given up resisting him entirely, her tongue came after his instantly and aggressively this time. Her knees squeezed his hips almost painfully tightly, and he could feel her fingers digging into the muscles of his upper back.

He slipped the fingers of his free hand into the loose knot of her obi and undid it with a gentle pull. The folds of fabric slithered away to pool at her sides, leaving her belly bare. He had been right – even undone, it still managed to cover her breasts. She _had_ enchanted it. With a tight thrill in the pit of his stomach, he pushed the last outliers away, fingers brushing her nipples as they went. She shuddered and arched under him.

Taking his time despite the growing tension between his legs, he swept his hands over her lavish breasts and cupped them, feeling their weight as his thumbs teased her nipples. She whimpered a little, uncharacteristically passive… but only for a moment. Pushing herself up, she pressed him down onto his back and kneeled atop him, her warmth perilously close to his painfully tight groin. Her yukata hung around her elbows and brushed the sides of her hips, but obscured nothing.

Yukio stared with frank admiration. He'd seen most of this before, but somehow it was different, and not just because the last few forbidden areas had been revealed. It had to do with her intent to _show_ them to him. She wanted him to see her like this. It was… different. The thunder in his chest made his ribs shake.

When she moved again, he was not prepared. She slid down his legs, away from him, and just as he was opening his mouth to ask what she was doing she leaned down and wrapped her mouth around his cock.

Involuntarily, his hips snapped up and nearly hit her in the face. She was a warrior, though. Her reflexes were very sharp. He forced himself to relax, a low keening sound scraping its way out of him in exchange. Putting her hands on his hips and her weight on her hands as a precaution this time, she went down again, this time sucking him even farther in.

"_Shura,_" he gasped, shaking with the effort of holding still.

She hummed, perhaps with amusement, and set to work with her tongue. Shortly he realized that he was making sounds, groaning sounds in a voice that didn't even sound like his, and that he could not stop them even when he tried. Nothing he had ever done to himself, alone in the showers, to relieve the pressure, had ever come close to this. His entire body felt condensed down to the bundle of nerves between her lips, every muscle he had winding tight around that center.

"Shura— stop— I'm going to—"

Sliding her hands down his hips to grasp his upper thighs, she pulled him up, closer, pushing herself to drag him in as far as he could go.

The world broke and turned white. The coiled spring undid itself in a long, shattering moment, spending all its power in one direction with singular focus.

"Sh-shura," he gasped, "Shura—"

Unhurriedly, she dragged the last of him out with one long pull before slowly sitting up and giving him a devilish, self-satisfied smile. "I take it no one's ever done that for ya before," she said.

Unable to speak, he shook his head, once.

"Ya need to get out more," she said, but she wasn't mocking him.

He could see that was glad to have been his first, glad that no one else had seen him come apart like this, glad that this was her power alone. He wondered when she'd realized she wanted this. Oh, it was wrong, by most of the written and time-venerated moral standards of the world, but he realized he didn't really care how long it had been. Even if she had realized early, too early, she had never pushed, never done a single inappropriate thing towards or near him. She had chosen to keep that truth to herself, and would have continued keeping it for an untellable amount of time if he hadn't dragged it out of her.

"Shura," he said calmly.

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to make love to you," he informed her. "Hold on."

He'd never seen her blush before. It was strange to see, but it looked good on her, and was flattering besides.

Extricating himself from her tangle of limbs, he stood up and lifted her easily in his arms. The door to the bedroom was standing an inch open, so he pushed it open with a foot and walked straight in.

Like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom was crowded with furniture, but he ignored all of it but the one in the middle – a large wooden poster bed with a patchwork hunter-green comforter thrown haphazardly over it. A mess of pillows was strewn below the headboard.

Yukio carefully laid her down, as close to the middle as he could reach. She'd slipped off the yukata at some point and left it behind, so she was completely naked, and radiant against the dark comforter. Yukio, to even the field, stripped off what was left of his own clothing and climbed up after her.

She welcomed him with her inhumanly warm hands and hungry mouth. He wasn't ready yet, but he would be soon, and there were a thousand things he could do to fill the wait. He chose to mount a search for the more sensitive places of her body, wandering across the pale plains and valleys with his hunting party of tongue and teeth and breath and fingers. She liked everything, but some places made her shudder harder than others, and those he took note of – the nape and hollows of her neck, the space between her shoulderblades, certain provinces of her inner thighs, a dozen others. By the time he had finished his expedition, he felt fully recovered, as he had hoped.

"Yukio," she said on a hitched breath. "Please—"

"Please what?" he pressed, just to tease her.

She glared at him, then suddenly sat up and swung a leg over him, pushing him down into the mattress with her weight. "Never mind," she said with a wicked smile, "I'll do it myself."

And again, without giving him time to brace himself, she took hold of him to guide herself and came down like nightfall onto him. He sank inside her with little resistance, though she was gripping him tightly. He had wondered if he should ask about lubrication, but it seemed everything was just fine for now.

"Oh," he gasped.

She made a small sound of her own. Still smiling, she drew herself up and sank down again, even more slowly, letting him feel the full effect.

It was ruinous. Different from what she'd done first, but no less powerful. Rather than drawing down to one point, he felt as if his whole body was the spring, now, his entire self a tightly restrained monster of potential energy.

Shura began to move in earnest, now, rocking up and down atop him, driving him slowly mad with each paired rhythm. He clutched at the comforter for stability, gathering great handfuls of it and finding nothing helpful. Unable to look away, he watched her as she rode him slowly, eyes closed and mouth slightly open in an unmistakeable expression of pleasure. She was mesmerizing. How had he worked with her all this time without wondering, fantasizing about this? Had he really been locked up so far inside his own head he couldn't see how beautiful she was until she got him drunk enough to break the windows?

"Shura, can I—"

"Whatever ya want," she said unsteadily.

Reaching up, he grasped her waist and flipped them so that she lay on her back with him between her legs, without separating from her. Then he began to move, carefully, gauging her reaction to each angle until he found one that made her eyes roll up and flutter shut and small sounds squeeze out of her throat.

Leaning down to bury his face in her throat and dishevelled hair, he pushed again, then began a slow but accelerating rhythm.

His skin felt electrified. Everywhere she touched – and she touched him everywhere she could reach – tingled and burned in the wake of her fingertips. He gasped and sobbed against her throat, gritting his teeth to keep from falling apart.

As he reached the apex of the rhythm, she dug her fingernails into the muscles around his spine and dragged him down, down, as far down as he could go. He fell through the earth with her, into the dark, and forgot the meaning of time.

"Yukio, Yukio, Yukio," she was saying, like a mantra, like an exorcist's aria, to keep the soul together and the demons out.

He echoed her own name back to her as they fell, together.

How could she think he could ever regret this?

Perhaps in the morning his inhibitions would find him hiding in the bushes and tie him down to the earth, make him hurt. Even so, even so.

"Shura," he answered, and there was no need for honorifics because all the respect he felt was manifest in the hoarse tone of his voice.

By every god whose name he remembered, he would swear to the truth of the moment. He was young, and stupid, but even so he could recognize this for what it was. There was love here.

Such a vague and mistrustful word, that; it would come to embrace the strangest of situations, and ignore with wilful snobbery the most obvious and ordinary. It was fickle and spiteful and utterly unreasonable, illogical, infuriating. But it was there, and that meant something, even if he didn't know quite what yet.

She fell asleep first, snoring softly on his chest with her red-gold hair all whorled up in hideous knots and sweat drying on her forehead. He still hated her. He probably always would, he realized. There was something about her, the jagged edges to her personality, that grated on him in all the worst ways. But that and… this… were not mutually exclusive. He could love her like this and hate her like this without breaking himself or the rules of the world. Like his blood, he could straddle two worlds without having to choose.

At least, not today. Not tonight. Not yet.

Morning was still hours away.

**X.x.X**

**A/N:** I wrote this months ago and firmly decided not to post it. I've had a bit too much wine tonight, though, so here you are.


End file.
